FEATURE
Inclusive tourism at work
Sawsawan sa Loay
They would have nursed the bellow-blown fire by four, because, by ten AM, the heat from the smoldering pile of coconut charcoal and the soul-sapping combination of the sun baking the low corrugated tin sheet roofing in the roadside shop would be too much to sap the body of the energy to heave the heavy mallets pounding the red-hot steel.
By then, the tandem of Cristino Baclayo and Pedro Guadalquiver would have been whetting to the fine hone, a dozen to 18 newly forged 10-12 inches of jungle machetes, house bolos, razor sharp.
“We like to start early while its bearable,” shared Guadalquiver, 37 years old, whose heavily calloused hands from hand-hammering and sweat breaking off from his muscular biceps, betray the body’s natural propensity to seek out a bit of comfort in an already uncomfortable life.
Starting early makes them work for only half the day, the baking heat of the workshop by noon is stifling enough and the nipa and mangrove forest behind the shop is only a little help.
Baclayo, was just 14 when his father taught him the rudiments of the industry: how to handle the tongs, tend the fire with the bellows, know when iron is hot enough for the beating, how to pound the spring into the basic shape, how much stress is needed so a blade doesn’t easily snap when applied tension and how to harden the beaten metal enough to resist wear.
“Austenitizing and rapidly quenching in water or oil to temper the metal, may be easy, but has to be timed right,” Baclayo, who has learned the trade by heart at a young age, explained.
Having completed Grade 6, Baclayo thinks he has limited his chances and has to follow that same route his father and his grandparents had been into.
Car leaf springs, coil springs, even discarded chain-saw blades are fair game, as long as there is patience enough to keep the fire burning and the bellows blowing, and no matter the shape, we pound it to desired blade length to the customer’s satisfaction, Bacayo said.
It would take nearly an hour to forge one medium sized bolo, without the handle, and that would take at least 1 thousand beatings by a four-kilo sledgehammer to form it into shape.
While Guadalquiver pounds, Baclayo maneuvers the red-hot steel flat on the anvil, one hand gripping tongs holding the forged blade, another arm, swinging the heavy mallet in a rhythm which echoes to the mangrove forests behind the shop.
He then reverses it to the other side, careful to make sure the mallets hit the proper spot needing the cure.
And then he turns it on the side every few beatings; the sound of steel and the swooshing from the bellows make up the chorus accentuated by the zoom of cars and motorcycle passing by the roadside shop.
A few more trips back to the burning coals and then the anvil, and the bolo comes to shape, edged and bevelled for the right-handed or left-handed user.
Then comes the delicate job of treating the forge, when the tapered sundang is successively quenched at slightly different temperatures into water or oil to harden the metal.
Sawsaw, is a local term for dipping the forge into water or oil to attain a certain metal toughness that does not easily chip, thus the word sawsawan is generally meant a metal quenching workshop.
And then whetting the bevelled sundang into its characteristic pinuti razor sharp.
“The job is backbreaking,” admits Guadalquiver.
“And it is dangerous,” adds Baclayo who occasionally buries the cooling forged metal back into the glowing coconut charcoal fed by the bellows.
From a solid lead spring of about 6-9 centimeters by 220 centimeters structures enough to be tough not to easily snap when applied with a good tension, two bolos can be forged.
Not without the risk of getting burned by mishandling the glowing steel, or getting one’s hands hit by the sledgehammer, the ball and the peen hammer, and working on the sharpened forges.
“But, it assures us of food for the family,” Guadalquiver said, adding that all it takes is industry and the strength to keep on pounding.
“I would hate it if my kids would follow this very physical job,” Baclayo, whose family traces a long lineage of blacksmiths.
Good for him, his four children are all girls, which he thinks make them unfit for the job.
Blacksmithing in Loay, which has seen a boom in the recent past years, however could be much older than most local workers know.
As far as they can remember, it was a guy evacuating from the risks of volcanic eruption in Camiguin, who started the forging industry here.
But then, in the 1990s, there was only one rickety shop standing along the highway in Villalimpia, Loay as against nearly ten shops forging side by side .
“I learned the skill from my aunt, who was among the first managers of the industry, and I have gone through many employers elready,” admits Guadalquiver, who has become Baclayo’s forging partner.
However, since Bohol opted to embrace eco-cultural tourism and agro-industry, the future of forging bolos opened for Baclayo and Guadalquiver, whose teen years were not as good as it is now.
Born at the time when access to universal education was still much harder when Bohol lay 7th at the bottom of the poorest provinces in the Philippines, education ranks lower, than working for food, if only to survive.
Since Bohol picked tourism because officials see that it spurs the opening of countless jobs, supports industries and pours in the necessary from the tourists themselves, life changed here.
When many believed tourism only enriches the tour operators and investors in the industry, Department of Tourism trained and accredited tour guides, tour drivers, hospitality management stakeholders and even tour stop workers started getting regular pay.
And then the farmers who grow the food started getting better sales.
As the demand for food for tourists increased, roadside agricultural products display stalls become regular stops.
And so are the blacksmithing shops where tourists seek souvenirs, engage blacksmiths and even get a hand in forging weapons.
Now a common fixture along the national highway in Loay, forge shops may have been back to resurrect the glory of Bohol’s heritage of freedom from foreign dominion.
In 1525, when Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and his men drifted to the sheltered Hinawanan Bay here, they were met by natives wielding heavy kampilans, long pinuti and forged metal tipped lances.
While these may have come from their active trade with other tribes in the region, maintaining and keeping these weapons of gallantry and resistance against colonization may have lit the embers now blown by the bellows for the present day forgers of Loay.
And the blacksmiths, ordinary Boholanos who may have been left behind had tourism been not inclusive, there would not be time for them to whet their future bright. (PIAbohol)
WHILE THE IRON IS HOT. Blacksmiths Baclayo and Guadalquiver may have been doing a simple task but shares the windfall of tourist revenues, while selling souvenir blades to walk in tourists. (PIAbohol)
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